Thursday, February 4, 2016

My 20th Birthday! Naha week 5; week 35

Monday December 7, 2015

This was a good week! We met some cool people. For my birthday, the
Ward Mission Leader threw a little party with us and the other
missionaries and apparently in his mission it was a tradition to smash a
pie in the birthday persons face. He asked if I was ok with it and I
said yes so...here's a video of it! A member also made a
pie and gave it to me at church on Sunday! So sweet! Today we are going to see a
castle, so thats cool!

We had a cool miracle
this weekend and I had a really cool experience last night. A person who
used to meet with the missionaries called us Saturday night and said she
wanted to come to church and continue taking the lessons. It was
awesome! We had a lesson and she brought her mom too who is super
supportive and pretty interested in the Church. I called her last night
after planning to set up an appointment for this week and she expressed
that she was feeling really guilty after going to church. She came home
and had read some scriptures that the previous missionaries had given
her to read. She couldn't remember one of the scriptures exactly, but I
felt like I should share a scripture that I had read in personal study
that morning. And as i read the scripture, she said "That's the one I was
trying to remember!" I could feel the Spirit so strongly as I testified
that Jesus Christ loves her and wants to help her overcome her
weaknesses. It was exactly what she needed.

This
meant a lot to me because during her lesson in the morning, as she was
telling us her experiences, I couldn't understand a lot of what she was
saying and so I wasn't able to respond like I wanted to. I was feeling
kind of incompetent. I want to help these people so much, but sometimes I
can't understand what they are trying to express from their hearts. But
then when I was on the phone with her last night and able to share the
exact scripture she needed and reassure her with my testimony of the
Savior, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I know that the Savior is
with us in our work. I know that we can become His hands even if we
aren't perfect in the Language. He knows His children and He knows that
He can trust us to do His work.

It was an awesome experience and reminds me a of a scripture I read last week, Genesis 18:14
" Is anything too hard for the Lord?" No! Is sending 20 year olds to
Japan to teach one of the most important messages in Japanese too hard
for the Lord? No! The only way I am able to teach people and impact
their lives is through the Strength of Jesus Christ and the gifts He has
blessed me with.

2 comments:

For your Birthday, we fed all six missionaries in our ward, I got a cake for you and we sang "Happy Birthday" to Lowe Shimai and I videoed it. I tried to send it to you, but I guess it was too large because it would not attach to the email. We were thinking of you! Love, Grandma